Sanctuary
by Kilerkki
Summary: In the aftermath of a mission gone bad, Hayate and Yuugao come to terms with their relationship and each other. [Oneshot, HayaYuu]


Sanctuary

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Written in response to a challenge issued by the incredible Nezuko; of course I had to frame it around Hayate and Yuugao, since I'm currently enthralled with a collaborative fic I'm writing with her. Check out _Moonlight on Masks _at the livejournal community moonlit underscore anbu (link in my profile).

This fic is set sometime before Hayate's lung injury, but sometime after Yuugao has joined his ANBU team and they've become lovers. I suppose Yuugao is twenty in this story, and Hayate is twenty-two. Shou is one of their teammates, of course!

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The light from the bathroom gleamed harsh and yellow under the door; even when Hayate turned over, the glow lightened his wall, and the bed around him seemed very empty. The shower had cut off nearly half an hour ago. Yuugao must have run out of hot water, though he'd no doubt that she'd stood under the freezing spray as long as she could manage. He'd tested the door an hour ago, but she'd somehow jammed it shut and he'd gone back to bed without trying further. When she needed him, she'd come to him.

He still couldn't get to sleep.

When the light flicked off and the door swung open, he forced himself to lie still, forced his breathing to come shallow and steady. She lifted the covers and slipped silently into the bed beside him. She did not touch him, but he could feel her trembling through the mattress.

Hayate rolled over slowly, as if she'd just woken him, and reached for her. Her long hair spilled like an inky river across her white pillow, still quite damp; she was wearing one of his shirts, the long one that came down to the middle of her thighs, and nothing else. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and she turned her head into his bare chest and did not cry.

After a long moment he said gently, "Shou's in good hands. He'll be back on his feet by the end of the month. We'll wait till he's ready before we go out again."

Yuugao shuddered like a restive horse; he felt the muscles leap beneath her skin, as if she would pull away. But she only said, numbly, "His genjutsu was better than Shou's."

"Well, yeah. He didn't get that S-rank for sleeping with Hokage-sama's wife." He grimaced as soon as he said it; she was in too bleak a mood for his jokes to pull her out of it. And it was almost too dark for him to see her eyes, even if she'd been looking at him. Her breath tickled the fine hairs on his chest, but she made no move to touch him more.

"We couldn't have known," she whispered; she sounded as if she were trying to convince herself. "Shou's our best genjutsu user, and _he _didn't know. If we'd known—"

"If we'd known, we wouldn't have let him split us up, but he would've snared us anyway," Hayate said firmly. "And he might have just gone in for the kill, instead of toying. We've got his pride—and _you_—to thank that we're still alive."

She shuddered again, but this time she drew a little closer. One of her hands crept around his back to hold him, fingers lapping tightly over his shoulder as if she thought she could keep him from dissolving into mist at any moment. She said in a low voice, "I saw him kill you."

He caught his breath sharply; she hadn't told him that. She had been cold and calm as a marble statue, afterwards, and when he tried to touch her she'd pulled away. But she had never cared to embrace him when she had blood on her hands, and this time she'd had blood on her hands and in her hair and splashed in a bright crimson sweep over her breasts and belly, almost masking the dark bruises on her arms and throat. He'd been content to know that none of the blood was hers, and to let her alone until she could come to herself again.

If he'd known…

He tightened his arm around her shoulders, holding her to him, and buried his lips in her damp hair. She smelled of citrus shampoo, with a note of something sharp and spicy. If he closed his eyes he could see her there again, standing blood-drenched and silent like some avenging goddess, with her grisly trophy dangling from her hand by the hair. She had not used her sword.

She said fiercely into his chest, "I _wanted _to kill him. I wanted to hurt him before he died. I would have made him beg, and laughed at him, and then spit on his corpse. For hurting you."

"He didn't hurt me," he whispered into her hair. She was a tense knot of muscle and anguish in his arms, now, and he began to rub his hand over her shoulder blades slowly, a little warily; he could not bear the thought that she might pull away now. "He never even touched me. He went after you, because he thought you were weakest, after Shou." The mistake of a lifetime, to think that; the mistake that killed him. Possibly the mistake that had saved _them, _because their enemy had fatally underestimated a woman's fury and her pain…

"It doesn't matter," Yuugao said, sounding suddenly exhausted. Her head turned a little, looking up to him at last. There was just enough light trickling through the curtained window at the head of the bed that he could see a flash of something in her eyes, an emotion he couldn't name. "I knew you weren't dead. I killed him anyway."

"That was the mission," he reminded her.

"I didn't do it for the mission," she said, and closed her eyes.


End file.
